Edward Baker Lincoln


Edward Baker Lincoln was the second son of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln. He was named after Lincoln's friend Edward Dickinson Baker. The National Park Service uses "Eddie" as a nickname and the name is also on his gravestone.

Early life

Little is known about the Lincolns' second son. A surviving story says that one day during a visit to Mary's family, Eddie's older brother, Robert Todd Lincoln, found a kitten and brought it to the house. Despite Mary's stepmother's dislike of cats and order to throw it out, Eddie screamed and protested. He nursed and cared for the helpless kitten, which he loved. Eddie was described by his parents as a tender-hearted, kind, and loving child.

Death

Eddie died a month before his fourth birthday. Although census records list "chronic consumption" as the cause, cardiologist John Sotos has suggested that Eddie died of medullary thyroid cancer given that: "consumption" was a term then applied to many wasting diseases, cancer is a wasting disease, his father and two of his brothers had several features compatible with the genetic cancer syndrome multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2b, Eddie's thick, asymmetric lower lip is a sign of MEN2B, and 100% of persons with MEN2B develop medullary thyroid cancer, sometimes as early as the neonatal period.
Eddie's funeral was held at the Lincoln home by the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, and his body was buried at the nearby Hutchinson's Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois. Both parents were devastated. A week after Eddie's death, an unsigned poem entitled "Little Eddie" was printed in the Illinois Daily Journal.
Authorship of the poem was long a mystery with some supposing that Abraham and Mary Lincoln wrote it. In 2012, the Abraham Lincoln Association published an article in their journal that concludes neither parent wrote the poem, and that it was instead an early draft by a young poet from St. Louis. The final line is on the boy's tombstone.
The next child of Abraham and Mary was born ten months after Eddie's death. After the death of President Lincoln, Eddie's remains were transferred to the Lincoln Tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield.

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